In England, Boxing Day, the day after Christmas, is kind of a big deal.

A national holiday, it’s a bona fide part of the holiday calendar. It’s the perfect coda to the Christmas celebration. Friends and family not seen on Christmas get together. Everyone’s relaxed. There’re leftovers to be eaten, and lots of football (i.e. soccer) to be seen. There are road races, frozen water plunges and other fun events. And, of course, there’s the shopping, the intensity of which is on par with our Black Friday.

How did we miss out on this Yuletide tradition? Did our Puritanical forebears have such a problem with fun that they cut out a day devoted to it?

Well, while we haven’t officially imported the holiday, we’ve observed it in subtle ways. Yes, there’s the shopping, but there are the day-after get-togethers of folks trying to stretch out the holiday. And, every now then, there’s some expected fun.

Twenty years ago, my wife, one-year-old son and I were at my in-laws place in Upstate New York for the holidays. My in-laws live near a small town known for its antiques, and on that Boxing Day we decided to go antiquing. It’s tough navigating small shops with a stroller, and after following one too many meandering paths of my wife and mother-in-law, I decided to wait outside.

Another dad, tired of antiquing, was outside the shop playing with his children. He was a tall guy, and his kids were hanging on him as if he were a jungle gym. This amused my son to no end, and I was about to say so when I saw that the playful father was none other than Liam Neeson. In the recesses of my mind, I remembered reading an article whereupon he lamented being recognized, so I said nothing.

A short time later, in yet another antique store, I told my wife that I would take the baby outside and said facetiously that maybe I’d bump into another movie star. No sooner had I got outside than I walked right by Geoffrey Rush and Natasha Richardson, Neeson’s wife. Dressed Paris chic and sporting sunglasses, Richardson looked like she had stepped out of the pages of Vanity Fair. Rush, his hair blown back by the breeze and sporting a long, white scarf, looked like he just stepped out of a Broadway theater.

Maybe you’re the type of person who doesn’t think too much about celebrity sightings, and maybe you’re the more healthy for it. But, to see three big-time Hollywood stars, one of whom had just won the Academy Award, in a tiny Upstate New York town, well, that was just so cool.

It was a Boxing Day miracle!

]]>245060She Did It Her Wayhttps://thesuffieldobserver.com/2018/12/she-did-it-her-way/
Sat, 01 Dec 2018 04:00:00 +0000http://thesuffieldobserver.com/?p=244954Paige’s husband called not long ago looking for anecdotes about her high school years that he could use in her eulogy. I wasn’t much help even though she and I were very close during high school. Her career in adventurous social activities blossomed more in college.

In high school we used to take long walks which we called Braeburning because we would wind up at an elementary school called Braeburn, where we’d sit on the swings and chat. On one of these walks we decided that we would not speak any English; unfortunately Paige was taking German and I was taking Spanish, so communication was challenging. Sometimes we’d fall back on our rudimentary Latin to try to be understood. At the end of this walk, Paige told me what she was trying to say. It was, “The paper boy is cute.”

I was disappointed in the banality of the thought that she’d worked so hard to communicate without English. But looking back at it now, I wonder if it was just a foreshadowing of things to come. Paige started serious dating before I did and once remarked that she would probably never get married because there were so many beautiful boys out there, she didn’t see how she could settle for just one.

She went off to Radcliffe College on a scholarship, and it was there that her more adventuresome side came to the fore. She rounded up a bunch of Cliffies and led them in a panty raid on the Harvard guys. “We don’t want your sockies; we just want your jockies,” they yelled beneath the windows of the male dorms. And “Fruit-of-the-Loom, va va boom!”

The attention drew the guys out of their dorms and they wound up in a big raucous party on the quad. This did not go unnoticed, and WDRC radio in Hartford called Paige’s mother to tell her that her daughter was going to be interviewed on the air that day.

The event was also noticed by the dean, who called Paige in and read her the riot act.

Paige’s 21st birthday party also garnered a little publicity. Held in a well-known dance hall in downtown Boston, the party was attended by the Harvard football team and reported in a local newspaper which had to be somewhat euphemistic in mentioning the gift she received from the guys.

In academics Paige also went her own way. She never bought any of the books required by her professors. Instead, every time there was a test, she went to the library and just read widely about the subjects to be covered.

In her senior year Paige finally settled down with just one guy whom she married about a year after they graduated from Harvard. Ultimately, they settled in Ipswich, Mass., in a home on an old farm originally owned by the Winthrop family. She had two children and became a master gardener with her own business, all the while making many contributions to her own community.

Ultimately Paige lost a brave battle against cancer and died leaving a legacy of a life uniquely lived.

This is the story of two families who live in the same house, but in different centuries. One is in more modern times and the other in the past, and both families are struggling to even begin to make ends meet. The house had been badly built to begin with, and the passage of time has not been kind to its condition. Of course they also have complicated family relationships.

The most modern family consists of Willa, her professor husband, his seriously ill father, an edgy daughter and a son whose wife has just committed suicide. She leaves behind a baby son and the baby’s father cannot deal with his grief and a baby, so baby Dusty joins Willa’s household.

The earlier family consists of Thatcher, a science teacher at a local school, his wife Rose, who is much younger than he is, her mother and Rose’s younger sister. Thatcher’s job is on shaky ground because he would like to introduce Darwin’s theories to his class, and the head of the school is much against that and is always undermining his teachings.

I have to say that introduction to the novel sounds pretty much like a downer, but it is a wonderful story, and Kingsolver is an amazing writer. It is one of those books whose characters you miss when you have come to the end. It is fiction, but Thatcher is based on a real person, as is Darwin. Kingsolver is an environmentalist. I have read most of her books, and one was so preachy my cohort Peggy said it made you want to go out on the highway and throw beer cans out the windows. That was the only one I did not like.

In this novel she makes comments about Dusty or one of the dogs or just something random that makes you laugh and just seems so real. As you can tell, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

C.M.

A Legacy of Spies by John Lecarre. Penguin/Random House 2017. 264 pp.

The main character in this novel is Peter Guillam, who had been active in the British Secret Service (or the Circus as it has become known) during the Cold War in the l960s. Now about fifty years later he is living at his family farm in Brittany. (He has dual citizenship since his father was British and his mother French.) One morning he receives a letter from his former Service demanding that he report to London at once. Although he is very reluctant he leaves for England the next morning. It appears that those presently in charge of the Secret Service are very disturbed over something that happened during a covert operation called “Windfall” that was active in the l960s.Now the story moves back to the years that Guillam was in active service. There are several characters now that have appeared in the author’s previous books: Alec Leamus, Jim Prideaux, and, of course George Smiley, whom Guillam greatly admires. Parts of this section of the book are heartbreaking, especially those involving “Tulip”, a German woman who is working secretly for the Service.

One has to read this book carefully because the story is complicated, even when it is very moving. Those who have read LeCarre’s previous books, especially The Spy Who Came In From the Cold and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy will love this book.

“Speak softly and carry big cookie. Big enough to share with a good friend.”

– Cookie Monster

Human Rights Day

December 10

“When the fundamental principles of human rights are not protected, the center of our institution no longer holds. It is they that promote development that is sustainable; peace that is secure; and lives of dignity.”

– UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid

Ra’ad Al Hussein

“Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home – so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. … Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerned citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.”

– Eleanor Roosevelt

“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.”

– Elie Wiesel

Winter Begins

December 21

“I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, ‘Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.'”

– Lewis Carroll

“‘Hear! hear!’ screamed the jay from a neighboring tree, where I had heard a tittering for some time, ‘winter has a concentrated and nutty kernel, if you know where to look for it.'”

– Henry David Thoreau

“Winter (noun)… the three-month break between a woman and her razor.”

– Instagram

“The fire is winter’s fruit.”

– Arabian Proverb

“I’ve noticed the squirrels are beginning to gather nuts for the winter. A couple of my friends are missing. Are you in a safe place?”

“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart. Wishing you happiness.”

– Helen Keller

“Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love.”

– Hamilton Wright Mabie

“The joy of brightening other lives, bearing each others’ burdens, easing others’ loads and supplanting empty hearts and lives with generous gifts becomes for us the magic of the holidays.”

– W. C. Jones

“It is tenderness for the past, courage for the present, hope for the future. It is a fervent wish that every cup may overflow with blessings rich and eternal, and that every path may lead to peace.”

– Agnes M. Pharo

New Year’s Resolutions

“Each New Year, we have before us a brand new book containing 365 blank pages. Let us fill them with all the forgotten things from last year—the words we forgot to say, the love we forgot to show, and the charity we forgot to offer.”

– Peggy Toney Horton

“Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man (or woman).”

– Benjamin Franklin

“Youth is when you’re allowed to stay up late on New Year’s Eve. Middle age is when you’re forced to.”

– Bill Vaughan

First Crossword Puzzle

Published

December 21, 1913

“The nice thing about doing a crossword puzzle is, you know there is a solution.”

– Stephen Sondheim

“Do I rue a life wasted doing crosswords? Yes, but I do know the three-letter-word for regret.”

– Robert Breault

“Now and then I work crossword puzzles. The harder they are, the more cross words I use.”

– Crabby Road/Maxine

“I have O.C.D. – Obsessive Crossword Disorder.”

– Etsy

Fruitcake Toss Day

January 3

“The worst gift is a fruitcake. There is only one fruitcake in the entire world, and people keep sending it to each other.”

– Johnny Carson

“My husband bought fruitcake one year. He ate some of it, but I wrapped the rest and gave it back to him for Christmas. The next year, I found it amongst my presents from him. It developed from there. This one’s been around 15 to 20 years. The first one lasted about that long, too. Fruitcakes are made to withstand the test of time.”

Giving thanks at Thanksgiving time and gifts at Christmastime, we count and share blessings. Reaching beyond unease toward peace on earth many yearn to rest, not necessarily as “merry gentlemen,” but as faithful people recalling more comfortable times.

Among the blessings we count are each other. Suffield is blessed to be cared about by hundreds of “each others”. We call them volunteers. They serve and care for us in countless ways.

Protecting our lives and property are police, fire, ambulance, health services and young and elder care. “Each others” plant seasonal flowers and flags and stand or sit out in the cold to collect food and clothing for those less fortunate than ourselves. They enrich our lives and spirits with generous gifts of experience, expertise and nature.

A grand gift of nature in recent years has been the Canal Park and Trail along the Connecticut River. Steve Sorrow led the way to the Park.

Following heart surgery fifteen years ago, Steve requested and received permission from the Ahlstrom Corporation for a group of retired volunteers to “hack and slash their way down the old towpath” to create a recreational and historical experience. The Friends of the Windsor Locks Canal Park and Trail organized to create and maintain the safe and beautiful walking and biking path many enjoy today.

Susan and Jonathan Sorrow shared that history along with family history in their joint eulogy of their father. Steve’s memorial photograph is set against a background photo of the Connecticut River Canal Park and Trail area.

Steve Sorrow shared his life in other ways. A volunteer fireman, he was buried in his uniform on his ninetieth birthday, five days before a celebratory luncheon was scheduled to be held.

During the week of Steve’s funeral, our country experienced other tragic deaths in California as vicious forest fires were claiming an unusual number of lives.

In Suffield many mourned not only Steve Sorrow’s passing but also the passing of strangers. We watched with millions of compatriots as people gathered along highways, interstates, overpasses, and sidewalks to honor the funeral procession for Ron Helus moving solemnly through Thousand Oaks, CA. Soon afterwards, we mourned crosses in Flanders Field and the mounting count of the dead in California fires.

Honoring known and unknown dead, we found comfort and healing in sharing sympathy and support. We united in the national, noble spirit of goodness and kindness, and for that great gift, we give thanks.

]]>244940Jack Patterson, Suffield’s Pridehttps://thesuffieldobserver.com/2018/12/jack-patterson-suffields-pride/
Sat, 01 Dec 2018 04:00:00 +0000http://thesuffieldobserver.com/?p=244459When Jack Patterson was shagging flies for his First Church team in the Suffield Little League, his dream was like that of young boys everywhere – to be a baseball player when he grew up. Fast forward to June 2018 and Jack’s dream is coming true as he was drafted by the Chicago Cubs in the 32nd round of the MLB draft. While he still has a long way to go before playing in the Major League, Jack has already beaten the odds. According to NCAA statistics for the year 2016/17, only 7% or 34,198 of the 486,567 playing high school baseball play it in college. Of that 34,198, just over 2% or 735 are drafted by professional teams.

While it was a dream, it didn’t really occur to Jack that he could play baseball for a living until late in his college career. “My real love as a boy was soccer, which I played year-round, but when I got to Suffield Academy, soccer wasn’t as big as it is at the high school and I put more energy into baseball.” Jack played in the outfield and hit well during his first two years. A southpaw, he moved to the mound for his junior and senior years and was selected New England Prep League pitcher of the year. Also, during his high school career, he played American Legion baseball and spent a year on the Storm, a western Massachusetts AAU team.

His pitching garnered the attention of college coaches and he was a couple of days away from committing to UConn when he got a call from Bryant coach Steve Owens. Owens wanted to see Jack pitch and asked what his schedule was. Serendipitously, Jack had a game that very day in Providence, RI, which is just down the road from Bryant. Owens came, saw, and offered Jack a position on the team with a partial scholarship. Jack liked what he saw at Bryant and decided to become a Bryant Bulldog.

Photo provided by the Patterson family

In college, Jack was a record-setting pitcher for Bryant.

After going 3-0 with a 3.41 earned run average (ERA) in his freshman year, Jack was hit in the head by a line drive four weeks into his sophomore season, sustained a concussion, and missed the remainder of that season and all of his junior year season. “I just couldn’t focus on the mound and ended up not pitching for 18 months, but I kept in close contact with the team and Coach Owens,” he reported. Returning to the mound as a red shirted junior, he went 4-0 with three saves and a 2.90 ERA that year and went on in his senior year to become the best left-handed power pitcher in Bryant program history. He was just the second Bryant pitcher to strike out more than 100 batters and garnered Northeast Conference honors as the NEC Pitcher of the Year in his senior year.

During the summer Jack played in the Northeast Collegiate League and met with MLB scouts. He knew that if he were to be drafted it would happen on the draft’s third day. On that day he was at Suffield Country Club preparing for a round of golf with his father when he got a text from the Tampa Bay scout. He was too nervous to golf and went home to wait for a call. After three and a half hours, with disappointment sinking in, he received a snapchat from a friend congratulating him on being selected and five minutes later got a call from Matt Sherman, the area scout for the Cubs. Within a couple of days Jack was on a plane to the Cubs spring training complex in Arizona and signing a contract. He was told that he would probably be used as a relief pitcher, which is more mentally taxing than being a starter since you never know when you will go in or for how long, so it is harder to prepare yourself.

He played most of the summer in Arizona but was called up to play in the Cubs A league team in Oregon. Although that team had the worst record in League history, they pulled it together for the last half of the season and made it to the playoffs, where they won the whole thing on a walk off balk!

During the season, players put in a roughly 12-hour day. They report to the training facility around 1 p.m. to receive treatment, if needed, and warm up. Lunch is at 1 p.m. followed by hours of running, throwing, hitting, and shagging flies for batting practice. At 5 p.m. the team has a snack and gets ready for a game at 7 p.m. After the game the team returns to the facility for dinner around 11 p.m. and leaves for home around midnight. Every five days they have a day off.

In the offseason, at present, Jack is working mornings on a local alpaca farm where he feeds and waters the animals and “shovels poop”. He also assists the Suffield Academy soccer team before heading to the gym to lift for a couple of hours.

People who know Jack’s family know that he comes from good athletic stock. His grandfather, Dennis Kinne, played basketball in college and was the Athletic Director at Suffield Academy for 42 years. His mother, Kelly, was the first girl to play Little League baseball in Suffield and played basketball and softball in college. His father, Wayne, also played basketball and baseball in college and is now the Athletic Director at the Academy.

On March 3 Jack will report for 25 days of spring training, after which he hopes to be assigned to the A league team in South Bend, Indiana. If he does well there, he could advance to the A league team in Myrtle Beach, which would be the “cherry on top” on his path to the major league. Regardless, he is chasing his dream and we at the Observer wish him the best!

In October, I joined town leaders from across the state and attended productive workshops at the annual Connecticut Conference of Municipalities (CCM) convention. Given the State’s financial woes, much of the focus centered on how towns can better position themselves for impending cuts to municipal aid. Hot button items included the need for collaboration, and structural changes via regionalization and within towns themselves. Consistently, the theme relative to success was the need, ultimately, for trust between partners. I am happy to say that in Suffield, we have such trusted partners in both our schools and neighboring towns.

Since 2016, I have advocated for shared services, where appropriate, between the Town of Suffield and Suffield Public Schools to achieve efficiencies; find innovative ways to stretch tax dollars; and strategically budget to meet our combined needs. Shared information technology resources have been at the forefront given combined IT budgets of $1,008,399 or 1.7% of Suffield’s 2018-19 General Fund (Town $296,136 and SPS $712,263). While the moment has not been right in the past, I am pleased to report that we recently collaborated to effect shared IT services. This not only resulted in the successful town-wide implementation of VoIP technology, but also decreased redundancies; created economies of scale; and aided resident safety with 24/7 IT backup. We will continue to move forward with shared IT services and evaluate the arrangement in May 2019, to further define salary allocation, workload, reporting structure, etc. If all goes well, the combined Technology Department will be permanent. Until that time, Rebecca Osleger, Suffield Public Schools IT Director, will be paid a stipend by the Town for her additional responsibilities.

•Reduced Town Hall footprint with larger space dedicated to IT eliminated,

•Town and School servers configured as each other’s backup for improved system redundancy and cost savings.

I am grateful to Mark Winzler, our Interim Superintendent, Bill Hoff, School Business Manager and Rebecca Osleger, IT Director, for being such productive partners and look forward to working with them on future cost-saving opportunities.

While at CCM, I had the pleasure of catching up with our friend and neighbor, Town of East Granby, First Selectman Jim Hayden. Our relationship is another great example of successful collaboration due to trust and open communication. Several years ago, Suffield and East Granby combined Animal Control. In the last two years, we have revitalized the service with training, professionalism and oversight. Regional efforts like this will be necessary in the future, more often than not, and I look forward to establishing Suffield as a role model for shared services and doing more with less.

Suffield truly wears a special sparkle this time of year. As holiday festivities begin, please check out our Community Calendar (www.suffield.ct.gov/community/calendar). Welcome a visitor, show off our beautiful town, and take advantage of truly wonderful holiday events, kicking off this weekend with the Winter Farmers’ Market, Suffield High School’s Agriscience Holiday Shop, the King House Holidayfest, the Suffield Garden Club’s Tree Gala and the Phelps-Hatheway House Holiday Tours.

Wishing you the happiest of holidays! Can’t wait to ring in 2019, and all the good things happening in Suffield!

]]>244504Attitude is Everything When It Comes to Teachinghttps://thesuffieldobserver.com/2018/11/attitude-is-everything-when-it-comes-to-teaching/
Thu, 01 Nov 2018 04:00:00 +0000http://thesuffieldobserver.com/?p=230581My favorite teacher, Dr. Sylvan Barnet, died recently. I was glad that I’d finally emailed him and told him of my visit to the New York University’s English department. A friend and I had stopped in to visit our friend Paige who was employed there as a secretary. Paige sat us down and put us to work stuffing envelopes for a mailing, and as we were stuffing and chatting, the head of the English Department emerged from his office. He asked us where we had gone to school and when I said “Tufts,” he asked if I’d ever met Sylvan Barnet there. I spontaneously erupted with, “Oh, he is the best teacher I ever had!” The department head looked a little pained but said nothing. Years later, I learned that he had been trying to lure Dr. Barnet from Tufts to NYU.

He must have been pretty young when I had him for Renaissance Literature. What endeared him to me was his exuberant love of his subject and his desire to share it with us. He made us feel lucky to be living in a world that had such wonderful literature in it.

So I have come to feel that what’s important in teaching is the teacher’s attitude towards his subject and his students. I had a Spanish teacher once who asked his class if we’d read this or that book, and he did not bemoan the fact that none of us had. Instead, he said, “Oh, you lucky people; you’ve got so much good reading ahead of you!”

Contrast that to the teacher who was cautious in his approach to the poetry of Wallace Stevens. He doubted we would be able to understand it and let us know that we probably weren’t smart enough. A Hartford insurance executive, Stevens DID write poetry that is hard to understand. Even so, the teacher could have been a little more positive in his approach.

I remember my elementary teachers pretty well, especially Miss Horton who taught us to identify different kinds of birds and Mr. Billcliff from New Zealand who taught us “Aught times aught is aught.” My 6th grade teacher was memorable for telling us to think for ourselves and not to do things just because everyone else was. I imagine she was conscious that we were about to leap forward into adolescence and would be tempted by smoking and drinking.

I was fond of my teachers, although I was always a little intimidated by them. After all, they were going to pass judgement on me and give me a grade and who knew how that might turn out? I never had a teacher I really disliked except perhaps the Wallace Stevens guy; he was young and arrogant and just seemed too full of himself.

I began a book that looked interesting, but it was not. Then I thought I would review the one I was reading for my book club, but I did not care for it at all so I had to hurry through Cave of Bones for something to review and thoroughly enjoyed it.

It is a mystery, mostly in Navaho territory, and features Tribal Police Officers Bernie Manuelito and Jim Chee, who is also Bernie’s husband.

Bernie is asked to give a talk to a group of girls with problems, who are in the hills camping. She arrives to find that one of the girls had gone missing but had just returned. However, one of the instructors, a man who is very knowledgeable about the area, which is a rugged area of lava deposits, and had gone to find her, is now missing. This is the beginning of a search with many twists and turns.

In the meantime, her husband, Jim Chee, is attending a class he has been asked to take and while there is trying to help with some personal problems with Bernie’s sister and some other Navaho families. These problems intersect at times and some become very dangerous. The descriptions of the scenery are wonderful. I lived in the mountains in Colorado for a few years, and although it was a different part of that country, I could still relate to it.

I also could feel nervous when Bernie was alone, and I thought that something might happen to her. But then she always seemed to “call it in” to headquarters, and I would be relieved.

I had read a book about the same characters some time ago and might even have reviewed it. I do highly recommend her mysteries. – C.M.

The Ruin by Dervla McTiernan, Penguin, 2018, 389 pp.

I had the same problem as Carol in finding a book to review and finally found one.

The prologue to this book takes place in l993, when Cormac Reilly, a fledgling police officer in the Irish town of Mayo, is sent to answer a distress call. He finds Maude, a fifteen-year-oldgirl, with her brother Jack in a decrepit old house. Upstairs their mother, Hilaria, is lying dead. Both children appear to have been abused. Cormac takes them to the hospital, but while Jack is being examined Maude disappears.

The story actually begins in 2013 when Cormac, now a detective, has recently joined the police force in Galway. He soon discovers that a body found in the river Corrib is Jack, the boy he helped twenty years before. The police say it was probably suicide, but Aisling, Jack’s heartbroken girlfriend, insists that couldn’t be true.

Aisling is one of the key characters, as is Maude, Jack’s sister who has returned from Australia. Other characters are members of the Galway Police Force. (I hope this isn’t a true picture of the Irish police. The chief, Rogers, is an impossible man, and the rest of the force are divided and difficult).

Cormac delves into the background of Jack’s life and finds he was a balanced and amiable person. The investigation continues and reaches back to 1993 and the death of Jack and Maude’s mother. The final conclusion is stunning.